Interrupting the reenactment cycle: psychotherapy of a sexually traumatized boy.
This case study describes the course in psychotherapy of an eight-year-old boy who had been sexually traumatized at an early age by his biological father. He was seen for 35 individual sessions during a three-month hospitalization. Many of the problems evidenced at admission were conceptualized as ineffective attempts to reenact and master the original trauma. Hospitalization provided an environment in which acting-out behaviors could be controlled in a manner sufficient to allow anxiety to be utilized in psychodynamically oriented therapy. A key element in psychotherapeutic work was the recognition that the boy struggled with positive as well as negative feelings toward his abusing father. Individual therapy provided a context in which these ambivalent feelings could be expressed, which ultimately allowed for developmental progression.
Ellis
P L
PL
Michigan State University, Grand Rapids.
Piersma
H L
HL
Grayson
C E
CE
D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D011613:Psychotherapy